According to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), as of September 2016, 693 detainees have been transferred from Guantanamo Bay. According to th ODNI, 122 (17.6%) are 'Confirmed' as returning to terrorist or militant activities, while 86 (12.4%) are suspected by them of the same.[3]

As early as 2004, the US government claimed that detainees released from Guantanamo Bay detainment camp had returned to the battlefield.[5] American officials, including former Vice PresidentDick Cheney, have claimed that detainees hid their real identities from interrogators, convincing them they were harmless to secure their release.[5] Initially, government spokesmen claimed relatively small numbers of former Guantanamo captives had returned to the battlefield. In a press briefing on March 6, 2007 a "Senior Defense official" commented:[6]

"I can tell you that we have confirmed 12 individuals have returned to the fight, and we have strong evidence that about another dozen have returned to the fight." On April 2, 2007, JTF-GTMO commander Harry Harris asserted that thirty former captives "resumed terrorist activities".[7]

On July 12, 2007 the Department of Defense placed an additional page on their site, entitled: "Former Guantanamo Detainees who have returned to the fight".[11] This list contained one additional name, not on the list released on May 14, 2007, for a total of seven names. The new name was Ruslan Odizhev, a Russian who Russian police reported died while resisting arrest on June 27, 2007.[12]

Some commentators questioned the credibility of these assertions. H. Candace Gorman, looked into the only three names that had been offered of captives who had been allegedly returned to the battlefield: Abdullah Mehsud"; "Mullah Shahzada"; and Maulvi Abdul Ghaffar.[13] She wrote, on March 18, 2007, that she found that the name Abdullah Mehsud wasn't listed on the official list of Guantanamo captives released on May 15, 2006.[10] She found that there were captives with names close to those of the two other men, but that the records showed these men were still in custody when according to the spokesmen's assertions they had not only been released, but had been killed in combat.

On 13 January 2009, the Pentagon said that 18 former detainees are confirmed to have participated in attacks, and 43 are suspected to have been involved in attacks.[14] A spokesman said evidence of someone being "confirmed" could include fingerprints, a conclusive photograph or "well-corroborated intelligence reporting." He said the Pentagon would not discuss how the statistics were derived because of security concerns. National security expert and CNN analyst Peter Bergen, stated that some of those "suspected" to have returned to terrorism are so categorized because they publicly made anti-American statements, "something that's not surprising if you've been locked up in a U.S. prison camp for several years." If all on the "confirmed" list have indeed returned to the battlefield, that would amount to 4 percent of the detainees who have been released at that time.[15]

According to a September 2014 report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, in July 2014 of the 620 detainees transferred out of Guantanamo, 107 have been "confirmed of re-engaging," and 77 are "suspected of re-engaging" in terrorist or insurgent activities.[16]

Captured in Afghanistan in December 2001, was one of the twenty-three prisoners released from Camp Delta in late January 2004. After his release, he joined the remnants of the Taliban and was killed in a gunfight on September 26, 2004.[5][5][19][20][21][22]

The official list of Guantanamo captives included two men with the same name, who remained in custody years after Maulvi Abdul Ghaffar had been reported to have been released, and killed in combat.[10]

That he was ever been captured, and sent to Guantanamo has been challenged.[13]

Allegedly masterminded the kidnapping of two Chinese engineers in Pakistan's South Waziristan region.

Allegedly returning to his position as an Al-Qaeda field commander.[20] One of the Chinese engineers died during a rescue mission, the other was rescued.[4]

Mehsud also claimed responsibility for the bombing at Islamabad's Marriott Hotel in October 2004. The blast injured seven people, including a U.S. diplomat, two Italians and the Pakistani prime minister's chief security officer. Mehsud was subsequently reported to have been killed in combat.

Reports of the release, return to the battlefield, and subsequent death in combat of Mullah Shahzada, while reported in the press, is always attributed to unnamed insiders.[30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][32][36]

The official list of Guantanamo captives included a man the same name, HajiShahzada who remained in custody years after the stories that Mullah Shahzada had been reported to have been released, and killed in combat. Haji Shahzada was one of the 38 captives whose Combatant Status Review Tribunal determined they had not been an enemy combatant in the first place.

On Monday, May 14, 2007, Pentagon officials, for the first time, tied the reports that "Mullah Shahzada" had returned to the battlefield to the name of one of the captives on the official list of Guantanamo captives, Mohammed Yusif Yaqub.[9] According to Reuters summary of their testimony:

"Released May 8, 2003, he assumed control of Taliban operations in Southern Afghanistan and died fighting U.S. forces on May 7, 2004."

First identified as a former captive who had returned to the battlefield in Testimony before Congress on Monday May 14, 2007.[9] According to Reuters summary of their testimony:

"Released from Guantanamo in early 2004, he was recaptured four months later in May while participating in an attack on U.S. forces near Kandahar. When captured, Ismail carried a letter confirming his status as a Taliban member in good standing."

First identified as a former captive who had returned to the battlefield in Testimony before Congress on Monday May 14, 2007.[9] According to Reuters summary of their testimony:

"Released in July 2003, he has since participated in fighting against U.S. forces near Kandahar. After his release, he was identified as the man described in an October 7, 2001, interview with Al Jazeera television as the "deputy defense minister of the Taliban."

First identified as a former captive who had returned to the battlefield in Testimony before Congress on Monday, May 14, 2007.[9] According to Reuters summary of their testimony:

Released from U.S. custody in July 2003, he quickly renewed his association with Taliban and al Qaeda members and has since become "reinvolved in anti-coalition militant activity."

930

Mohammed Ismail Agha

Reports have circulated that one of the three children who was held for a year and a half, in Camp Iguana, and released on January 28, 2004, was subsequently captured, or subsequently killed in combat — accounts vary.[32]

As with "Mullah Shahzada" this information is attributed to unnamed insiders.

Accounts of when he was captured, or killed, vary.

Oliver North claimed that the released child was "Mullah Shahzada".[36] North claimed that "Mullah Shahzada" was killed in combat weeks after his release. Mullah is an honorary title, meaning "educated man". However the only schooling the three children held in Camp Iguana ever received was the lessons they received at the camp.[38][39][40] North's account that a released child from Camp Iguana was killed in combat, weeks after his release, is at odds with the accounts of the journalists who interviewed the children during the months following their release.

On February 18, 2009, the BBC News reported that UK officials had told them that an Afghan former captive repatriated in the Spring of 2008 had risen to a high-ranking position in the Taliban, in Pakistan, following his return. The BBC reports they had been told his name was MullahAbdul Kayum Sakir. The USA did not list any captives with names close to Abdul Kayum Sakir. The five captives repatriated on April 30, 2008, are: Nasrullah, Esmatulla, Rahmatullah Sangaryar, Sahib Rohullah Wakil, and Abdullah Mohammad Khan.

On May 21, 2009, Elizabeth Bumiller, writing in the New York Times, reported that they had secured access to an unreleased Pentagon report that asserted "one in seven" former captives "are engaged in terrorism or militant activity."[43][44][45] According to the New York Times Pentagon officials had asserted 74 former captives had returned to terrorism, and had named 29 individuals. But, by May 21, 2009, the New York Times chose to publish only 15 of those 29 names because they couldn't correlate the names on the recent Pentagon lists with the earlier official lists of captives' names.

British officials believed Rasoul became the Taliban's operations commander in southern Afghanistan soon after his release and blamed him for masterminding an increase in roadside attacks against British and American troops.[50]

The New York Times reported that Rasoul led a December 2008-January 2009 delegation to the Pakistani Taliban to convince them to refocus their efforts away from the Pakistani government and towards the American-led forces in Afghanistan.[51]

Faced charges in Kuwait following his repatriation on November 4, 2005.[72] The charges were based on evidence supplied by the USA that he had ties to Al Wafa.[73][74] The Kuwaiti court acquitted Al Azmi.

Member of Jama'at-ud-Da'wah Pakistan, a group created in 1985 to fight the Soviet occupation. Although designated a terrorist organization in 2008 by the State Department, it is not on any of the official U.S. watchlists as it has worked as a charity with no military wing since 1991.

Arrested in August 2002 after an informer claimed he had helped members of al Qaida escape from Kunar. The Afghanistan government believes the head of the rival Mushwani tribe had turned Wakil in because the Mushwani tribe opposed a poppy eradication program that Wakil had begun in Kunar.

Released in April 2008. Upon his release Wakil met with President Hamid Karzai who apologized for his detention.

Currently a tribal elder representing Kunar province in the Afghanistan government.[76]

On May 27, 2009 the Defense Intelligence Agency published a "fact sheet" Former Guantanamo Detainee Terrorism Trends that contained a Partial Listing of Former GTMO Detainees Who have Reengaged in Terrorism.[78] Although it was published on May 27, it bears the date April 7, 2009.

Appendix A: Partial Listing of Former GTMO Detainees Who have Reengaged in Terrorism[78]

In August 2011 UK captiveTarek Dergoul got into a scuffle with a parking official, who was giving his car a ticket at an expired parking meter.[79] He received a one-year conditional sentence, and had to undergo a mental health assessment. Benjamin Wittes, a legal scholar who focuses on counter-terrorism issues, referred to the issue of competing assessment as to what percentage of former Guantanamo captives should be considered Guantanamo recidivists, when he asked whether Dergoul's conviction would make him a recidivist.[80]

^John J. Lumpkin (2004-10-18). "7 ex-detainees return to fighting: Guantanamo release process called imperfect". Boston Globe. Archived from the original on 2009-09-16. One of the two former prisoners killed is Maulvi Abdul Ghaffar, a senior Taliban commander in northern Afghanistan who was arrested about two months after a US-led coalition drove the militia from power in late 2001. He was held at Guantanamo for eight months, then released, and was killed Sept. 26 by Afghan security forces during a raid in Uruzgan Province. Afghan leaders said they thought he was leading Taliban forces in the southern province.